This assessment task is an analysis of the financial performance of a selected ASX Listed Company. This assignment requires your group to undertake a comprehensive examination of a firm’s financial performance based on published financial statements of the chosen companies. You are required to calculate and interpret the financial ratios applicable to your chosen company.
Obtain a copy of the last two financial years (2017-2018 and 2018-2019) Financial Statements of the chosen company (annual reports are accessible via company websites or www.asx.com.au). Your group can download these documents from the suggested web site using the firm’s code (example, BHP- for BHP Billiton Company, etc.).
Group Registration:
Students are to form groups, with a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of five (5) students per group. The assignment consists of a 5 -10 minute video presentation. Students must upload their completed video to youtube.com or another publicly-viewable video sharing platform. Note only the link to the video is to be submitted on Blackboard.
Once registration is done, you should see your members’ names and student numbers’ listed in your Blackboard dashboard (on the left side links). If anyone is missing or if you would like to add or remove any members, send your lecturer an email or discuss this with your lecturer in class
Group Video Presentation
1. Choose an ASX Listed Company from the list uploaded under “Assignments and Due Dates”.
2. Submit your chosen company to your lecturer for pre-approval. Once your lecturer registers your chosen company, it cannot be chosen by any other group.
3. The verbal presentation will be done by video recording. All members must be present. Assign a spoken part to each member. Deductions will be applied if there are missing members, unless advised beforehand to the lecturer.
4. Members are expected to wear professional business attire for the presentation and to observe etiquette expected in business presentations.
5. The video link must be uploaded to a publicly-viewable video sharing platform (ex. Youtube, Dropbox, Google drive) and the video link uploaded on Blackboard. Instructions on how to record and upload are provided separately under the “Assignments and Due Dates” section of Blackboard.
6. A video presentation consists of both images and audio. For this reason, a generic Power Point presentation showing slides even with accompanying voice recording is not considered a video and, hence, not allowed.
7. The group presentation is worth 10% of the total marks for the group assignment task.
Guide Questions
A. Company Background
– Prepare a brief description of the selected company, outlining the core activities, competitive advantages, the market in which it operates in and any factors in the company’s history, which you consider helpful to present a “picture” of your chosen company.
– Other possible content: What industry does your company belong to? What are its products/services? What are the locations of its operations?
B. Calculation of Financial Ratios
– Choose at least 2 Financial Ratios that you deem applicable to your chosen company. You can choose from Liquidity Ratios, Profitability Ratios, Activity Turnover Ratios, Solvency Ratios, and Cash Efficiency Ratios.
– Calculate at least two (2) years of the same ratio.
– Present them in a table format so that you can easily compare from year on year.
C. Interpretation of Financial Ratios
– Why did you choose this ratio?
– Why is it important to your chosen company?
– What does the ratio indicate?
– What actions can the company do to influence the ratio, i.e. improve the ratio if it is “bad” or maintain the ratio if it is “good”?
